Could Washington, Madison, and the other framers of the
Federal Constitution revisit the earth in this year 1922,
it is likely that nothing would bewilder them more than
the recent Prohibition Amendment. Railways, steamships,
the telephone, automobiles, flying machines, submarines
– all these developments, unknown in their day, would
fill them with amazement and admiration. They would
marvel at the story of the rise and downfall of the
German Empire; at the growth and present greatness of
the Republic they themselves had founded. None of these
things, however, would seem to them to involve any
essential change in the beliefs and purposes of men as
they had known them. The Prohibition Amendment, on the
contrary, would evidence to their minds the breaking
down of a principle of government which they had deemed
axiomatic, the abandonment of a purpose which they had
supposed immutable.

534. It can be inferred that the paragraph is intended as

(a) an introduction to a discussion of a constitutional amendment

(b) a summary of social and political change since the writing of the Federal Constitution

(c) an introduction to a history of the Constitution

(d) a clarification of the author’s view of a controversy

535. The author apparently believes that the “principle of government” mentioned in the last sentence is